Diary of the Spicy,Pearl City - Hyderabad

This is the blog which talks about the surprise trip that was planned by my wife for my birthday. As usual this was one of the to-do places in our bucket list. We were able to get a day off from work to make it a leisurely trip exploring the pearl city - Hyderabad.

Since this trip was planned as a surprise, the flights were not booked well in advance. Still, we were able to get a ticket at a better price which is almost at par with 2AC train cost. It was a 3-day trip which we had planned over a weekend plus Monday. We had everything planned on our own for this trip. We had booked most of the stuffs online and planned to commute using local transport and uber/ola for sight seeing.

We started early in the morning from Bengaluru. The fly time is around 50 minutes to Hyderabad. We reached Hyderabad by 8.30AM. We had a booking at Hotel Sai Prakash located at the station road Nampalli. We took Ola to reach the hotel which costed us close to 800Rs. Surprisingly, we had a tough morning because the hotel staff was not good at welcoming the guests who had booked online. They did not oblige us to check in though there were plenty of rooms available. Somehow they agreed to keep our luggage in cloak room till 2PM which was their check in time. We had booked this hotel because, Hotel Kamat was just opposite to it, which we thought would be a good option to have food. So, we dropped our luggage at the cloak room and headed to Hotel Kamat for breakfast. As expected, we got tasty Idly, Vada with Sambar and Chatny. We decided to finish breakfast and visit Nehru Zoological park and Salarjung Museum to pass the time till 2PM.

Depending on local transport or app based taxi service did not let us down to explore our destinations. We used to get Ola/Uber at convenience. We booked Ola and reached Nehru Zoological park. The zoo remains closed on Monday, so one should plan accordingly to visit this place. The zoo was open by the time we reached there by 10AM. But there was not much people since it was early. We got our tickets for 35Rs per head and entered the zoo. One could also opt for battery operated car tour with in the park at an extra cost. The zoo has good collection of animals. However since it had rained heavily for few days, the safari was closed due to which we could not see the lions over there. Otherwise we spotted bears, jackals, Cheetah, leopard, Tiger, varieties of monkeys, birds etc. If there are kids in the group, they would enjoy this place. The place also offers bicycle to ride around the park at a nominal cost. We finished seeing the special creatures by walk and were about to return. But we felt a bit tired. We found benches across the zoo to sit and relax ourselves. When we were heading back, we witnessed lots of people entering the park. So, by 11AM or so lots of people enter the park and it may get crowded. So plan to enter early and watch the special creatures at ease. Overall, the place has good facility and people who are interested in zoo's can visit this place. 

Zoo entrance

After exploring the Zoo, we headed to explore the Salarjung Museum. Again we used Ola to reach this place. The museum has collection of lots of stuffs from Salarjung era. It also has stuffs from western, Europe, and lots of other geographies. The place is good for the people who are interested in History. The entry fee for this museum is 20Rs for Indians. For foreigners its a bit expensive. One more point to note here is that, the museum restricts people carrying bags to their premises. Except for very small bags or ladies purse or kids water/milk bottle they wont allow any bags to inside. There is a baggage counter across the museum. Visitors have to deposit their bags here and enter the museum. It took approximately around 1 hour for us to explore this museum. After this, we headed back to the hotel and finished our lunch at Kamat again and went for checkin. Yes, now we are checking in :) The bad experience with the hotel carried forward with the passages being stinky. We had to walk all the way up for 2 floors with luggage because lift was simply turned off and the hotel management gave a damn to it. We entered the room and got freshened up and decided to rest for couple of hours.
Since there was rain predicted in evening, we decided to head to the most busiest and famous Charminar. We took an auto to reach the Charminar entrance. The crowd was so buzzing here and one would get lost in the crowd here. We went to explore Chowmohalla palace which is at a walking distance from Charminar. The palace is a must visit I would say for the variety and history it offers. The entry fee for this palace is 50Rs for Indians and the palace would remain closed on Friday. It took around 1.5 hours for us to explore this place and we started heading back to Charminar street just to meet the thunderstorms on the way. The rain was just so heavy that the road became swimming pool in no time. We just entered some shop and started shopping there. My wife is good at negotiating with the shops, which she proved again. The fellow was telling around 3000 for some article which he finally agreed to give at 1/3rd of the price. Thats the level of bargain one has to do with those people. The moment they realise that we are visitors and not natives, they start quoting exorbitant prices. We should hold our nerves to bargain and get at the best price. The entire process took around 1hour. Still rain did not slow down. We decided to start back because we had to yet reach the hotel. It was already 8PM. We tried so many autos, nobody was ready to come to the location our hotel was in. The reason being there was too much water logging in that surrounding, nobody wanted to risk their vehicle going there. One fellow agreed to come, to our surprise without any extra demands. Yes, such people still exist. He took all possible routes he knew to drop us off quickly. With all his wit and skills, we reached our hotel by 10PM. Yes, it took 2 hours in that water logged roads to reach 5km. We took parcel from Kamat for dinner and slept.

Busy road of Charminar

Chowmahalla palace entrance

On day 2, we started with breakfast at Kamat and we had booked Ramoji film city one day tour. We had booked the tickets online. The film city provides buses to pick the customers from the city to their property. The buses operate at a nominal cost of 250rs per person for their service. In morning they picked us by 8AM and by 9AM we were dropped at the entrance of the filmcity where we had to redeem our online ticket to the film-city voucher. From here the bus took us to the film-city and by 9.45 we were there to witness the welcome dance by the crew. Since we entered the theme park early, we were the first ones to visit all the shows that were available there. We also got to explore these at not much hassle since we were at the front of the queue always. By 12.45 we had finished all the shows. We had some light snacks in one of the cafes there and headed for bus tour around the park. These bus tour operation starts at 1PM and they continue till evening. The bus tour takes around the theme park. There will be a guide who will be explaining various facilities/properties that are available there. After that, we will be dropped back to the main stage again where in there will be a closing ceremony/show. Since we had lot of time after this, there was an option to explore various rides like breakdance, dragon etc. But we chose to sit back and enjoy those. The dance show started by 6PM in the evening. The bus which picked us from the city would head back to the city again only at 8PM. So, forcefully, we were waiting in the theme park till 8PM to depart. From the theme park we just took their shuttle to reach the main entrance from where we boarded the bus that picked us from the city. We reached the hotel by 9.30PM. Again, from Kamat we took parcel and finished our dinner. I would say the film city is well organized with its crew members assisting the visitors in the premise always. So, if you are in Hyderabad, and is ready to walk a lot, you should really experience the shows and other stuffs that are available in Ramoji.

Welcome dance

Stunt show

Bahubali Sets

On day3 we had our flight at 10.30PM. We chose this flight for two reasons. One  we thought we could cover some more interesting palces in Hyderabad. Second being, the flight combo with this flight was coming out to be economical. But this choice proved to be a bit wrong, having us waiting at airport for 7 hours :( We had to wait not because flight got delayed. But because, there was not much to explore after our 2-day excursion. We had plans to visit the Lumbini park, Golconda fort, Hussain Sagar lake, Shri Jagannath temple, Birla Mandir. But since the previous 2-days were a bit exhaustive, we woke up a bit late. We realized that we were already late for hussain sagar lake and the birla mandir. Hence we decided to drop them. Later we planned to take Ola rental for 4 hours and planned to visit the Lumbini park and the Golconda fort. It was pretty hot since it was already 12 by the time we started. We first went near Lumbini park and took photos from outside. Later we proceeded to the Golconda fort. The fort remains open from 8AM till 5.30 PM. The entry fee is 15 per person. It is 200 for foreigners. We had forgotten to take caps in this trip. The fort just reminded us of our mistake. It was too sunny and the reflection from the fort walls made it feel more hotter. One should be really strong enough to climb till the top of this fort. We need to cross close to 700 steep steps to reach the top. We entered this fort with a mindset to climb how much ever is possible till 2.30PM because, we had a 4hour rental. So did not want to waste much time, and head to airport with that. My wife could come along till half way; after that I raced to the top and came back in 10-15 minutes. It was not far from where my wife gave up. It is just in the interest of time, she chose to stay back. We climbed down the fort and had some tea with biscuits on the way down. I would not describe the importance of this for here. Just google it, wikipedia gives all that you need. Once we were out of the fort, my wife explored some more pearl items in the certified outlet nearby. She took an article there after which we headed to airport. We were dropped at the airport by 3.45PM. We had some food at one of the restaurants there and waited for 6 long hours to start the boarding. We reached home by 1AM with sweet memories.

Buddha statue lumbini park

Golconda fort entrance

View of the fort from foothill

View from the top

View from the top

Notes:
1. One can easily plan a 2-3 days trip to Hyderabad.
2. If you are planning with a family sized 4 or above better to opt for private vehicle for local sight seeing. Otherwise you can easily rely on Ola/Uber/Auto/Buses.
3. Book tickets online for Ramoji filmcity. This avoids the queue at the location.
4. It is wiser to chose the pickup facility provided by the filmcity if you are less than 3 people. Otherwise go for private vehicle.
5. Book hotel well in advance to get better deals.
6. Check for the operational timings of all the attractions you want to visit. In Hyderabad few stuffs are closed on Friday, few on Monday. Have a clear idea on these.
7. Stay safe at crowded places like charminar. People may not just try to cheat you, there may be lot of thieves as well. Beware of them.
8. Its generally hot at Hyderabad. So, better to chose the hotel with AC provision.
9. Check for the weather before going outstation. Prepare according to weather by carrying umbrella/rain coats etc.
10. Language may not be a barrier in Hyderabad. People speak Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Oriya. So that should not be an issue.
11. Personally, I do not know from where the pearl reaches Hyderabad. Though it is not available natively here, it is all imported from other parts. So, personally I do not advise anyone to buy pearl here :)

We enjoyed this trip thoroughly. Hope you plan a visit and enjoy too.